Account-based marketing, written to one person at a time
An account-based marketing agency runs marketing for a chosen list of companies instead of a broad audience. It agrees the list with sales, researches each account and writes to the people in it. Draftship does it by email, for up to 200 accounts a month, sent from your own domain.
- Every account on the list has a dated reason.
- Every email is written to one person and checked by a person.
- Sent from your own domain, never a lookalike.
- You approve every email before it sends.
- TBTyler Brooks9:41Quick question, {first_name}Hi {first_name}, I came across {company} and love what you're doing in the space. Open to a quick chat?
- KMKayla Moreno9:30Idea for {company}Hi {first_name}, I hope this finds you well. We help companies like {company} turn {pain_point} into growth.
- JFJoel Ferreira9:12Two warehouses and the quarterly closeHi James, Ardent has been running two data warehouses since the Halden acquisition: the Redshift cluster that came with the deal, and the Snowflake instance your platform team stood up last year.
- DPDevon Price8:57Following upJust bumping this to the top of your inbox, {first_name}. Did you get a chance to read my last email?
- MLMia Lawson8:40Congrats on the new role!Hi {first_name}, congrats on your role as {job_title} at {company}! Would love to connect.
- RKRachel Kim7:58Saw your profileHi {first_name}, I came across your profile and thought we'd be a great fit. Do you have 15 minutes this week?
- JTJosh TurnerYesterdayRe: our conversationHi {first_name}, circling back on our conversation about {pain_point} at {company}.
Example3 more written to a list
Everything it takes to write to the person.
One system, built in your own tools and run for you every month. You approve the list and every email; we do the rest.
The list
Built from the pattern in your closed-won deals, then approved by you, account by account.
A research note on every account
Why now, who owns the problem, and every fact with its source and its date.
Every email written to one person
Written from the note, checked by a person, and approved by you before it sends.
Sending, set up on your domain
Authenticated in your own tools, so the reputation you build is yours. Never a lookalike.
Follow-ups and replies
Follow-ups written the same way. Replies sorted daily, and interested ones passed to you with the note.
Yours to keep
Everything is built in your own tools and on your own domain, so it all stays with you if you stop.
The same first email, rewritten for one person.
A template fits every company on a list, which is why it reads like one. Here is what changes when it is written for James, and where each fact came from.
Showing the changes: each template line, then the line that replaced it.
- To
{first_name} {last_name}, {company}James Ashworth, Ardent Retail GroupThe person who owns the problem, found before anything was written.
- Subject
Quick question, {first_name}Two warehouses and the quarterly closeNames their problem, so it is only worth opening at Ardent.
Hi {first_name},Hi James,The one line a merge tag can write.
I came across {company} and love what you're doing in the {industry} space.Ardent has been running two data warehouses since the Halden acquisition: the Redshift cluster that came with the deal, and the Snowflake instance your platform team stood up last year. I gather neither is going anywhere soon.Press release, 11 MarchCareers page, 2 MayTwo facts, each dated and opened at its source before a word was written.
We help companies like {company} get more from their data with our AI-powered platform.The migration is rarely the painful part. The quarterly close is: finance and analytics arrive with different numbers and nobody in the room can say which one is wrong.Q1 earnings call, 30 AprilTheir problem in their own words: on its Q1 call, Ardent said the two sets of figures do not match yet.
Would you be open to a quick 15-minute call this week?Fifteen minutes on Thursday or Friday? If the close is not the thing keeping you up, tell me what is and I will send something more useful instead.One question, and an easy way to say no.
Best regards, {sender_name}Joel
Example
A mail merge knows the company. We know why now.
Every account earns its place with a dated reason, and every email is written from a note where each fact has its source. Accounts that fail our tests come off the list.
| Company | Why it is on the list | Dated | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ardent Retail GroupRetail group, 40 stores | Bought Halden Stores in March and now runs two data warehouses, Redshift and Snowflake. | 15 May | On the list |
| Kestrel FreightFreight forwarder, 900 staff | A new CFO started in June and the annual report lists one version of the number as a priority. | 3 July | On the list |
| Marlow HealthHospital operator, two campuses | Opened its second campus in April and posted five integration roles the same month. | 22 April | On the list |
| Tavish EnergyRegional energy supplier | A new regulator rule from August requires quarterly usage reporting, with a named owner who is new. | 30 July | On the list |
| Brightwell InsuranceSpecialty insurer | About 70% of revenue comes through one distributor, so there is no independent buying group to write to. | 15 May | Taken off |
| Coleford MediaRegional publisher | Signed a five-year contract with a direct competitor of ours in February, announced in their own press release. | 3 July | Taken off |
- {company}
- Ardent Retail Group
- {industry}
- Retail
- {employees}
- 1,001 to 5,000
- {revenue_band}
- $500M to $1B
- {technologies}
- Salesforce, Redshift, Snowflake, Slack
Every field fills a merge tag. None says why to write to Ardent Retail Group this month, or to whom.
Bought Halden Stores in March and now runs two data warehouses, Redshift and Snowflake.
James Ashworth, data platform lead; the CFO for the outcome
- 1Announced the Halden acquisition on 11 March.Press release
- 2Posted a data engineer role on 2 May that names both warehouses.Careers page
- 3Said reporting between the two businesses does not yet match.Q1 earnings call, 30 April
Built to arrive before the first email goes out.
Seven things are true before anything sends. Setting them up is part of the build.
Check your own domain, free- Your own sending domainNever a lookalike. A lookalike domain we owned would protect our reputation, not yours.
- SPF and DKIMPublished and aligned with the From domain, which Google’s sender guidelines require above 5,000 messages a day.
- DMARCPublished at p=none with a reporting address, then tightened after two weeks of clean reports.
- One-click unsubscribeThe List-Unsubscribe headers from RFC 8058, and requests processed within the 48 hours Google recommends.
- Spam complaints, watchedIn Postmaster Tools. Google asks for a spam rate below 0.10% and never 0.30% or higher.
- Replies to a real personA mailbox on your domain that someone on your side watches. The sequence stops for anyone who writes back.
- Your approvalYou read every message before it sends.
Built into your systems within days.
We build the outbound system inside the tools you already use, on your own domain, and then we run it: the research, the writing and the follow-ups, with every email approved by you. Everything we build stays yours.
Right for some teams. Honest about the rest.
It is a fit when
- You sell to a defined set of companies, and a deal is worth researching the account first.
- Your outbound reads like it was written to a list, because it was.
- Nobody inside owns the list, the research and the writing from end to end.
What we will not do
- Buying or scraping lists
- Sending from a lookalike domain
- An AI SDR on your domain
- Volume targets
- Your tool subscriptions, which you pay directly and keep
Read how it is done, or try the tools.
The articles we would hand a new teammate, and the free checks we run before every send.
How many accounts should be on the list?
50 to 200 if two or three people run the program, and the low end if it is one person. That range is Salesmotion's, and the limit behind it is research time. If your list has thousands of rows, the first job is cutting it.
Do you build the list, or do we?
We build it from your closed-won deals and a set of exclusion tests we write first, and you sign off account by account. If you already have a list you trust, we run it through the same tests instead.
How long before we see anything?
The system is built into your own tools within days, and the first emails go out once you have approved the list and the messages. Salesmotion says most agencies set expectations at 3 to 6 months for initial pipeline impact and 6 to 12 for revenue. It adds that an agency promising pipeline within 30 days is likely running broad demand generation.
Do you use AI?
Yes, for the research and the first draft of every email. A person checks each fact against its source and rewrites the email, and you approve it before it sends. A person decides who is on the list.
Where we use AI in account-based marketing, and where we stop
Who owns the sending domain and the data?
You do. The sending domain, your email platform account, the list, the research notes and the replies are yours, and if we stop working together they stay with you.
How many emails a day will you send?
Few. The list sets the volume, not a target. Google counts messages across your whole primary domain, subdomains included, so another team's newsletter counts toward the same total.
Who answers the replies?
A named person on your side owns the mailbox and takes the meetings. We sort replies daily, draft answers to objections, and pass interested ones on with the research note. Nothing is auto-replied, and the sequence stops for anyone who has written back.
Will you report open rates?
As a health check with a caveat, never as a result. Apple's Mail Privacy Protection downloads remote content in the background whether or not the recipient reads the message, so some opens are machines. We report replies, bounces and complaint rate.
Which metrics still carry signal after Apple Mail Privacy Protection
Source: Apple, Mail Privacy Protection